Happy Holidays to Everyone!

Feliz Navidad! I believe that of all the Christmases we have ever prepared for, this year was the most tiring of all because of the following 'firsts':

1. First time kong pumunta ng Divi na isang week na lang Pasko na.
2. First time kong nagbalot ng lahat ng regalo in one sitting.
3. First time na di kami maka-decide kung punta ba ng Bulacan o hindi.

Pero may katapat naman na magandang first ang Christmas ngayon: first time ni Matthew na ma-enjoy talaga ang Christmas: from Santa's stocking na puno ng toys to christmas reunion sa #8 hanggang sa pag-open ng xmas gifts ng mga ninong at ninang nya. I caught it all on video!

Well here's to more interesting Christmases ahead of us... Pero siyempre how can we forget our gift to those who have accessed our website? Here's one and presenting, Willie as Santa and Ella as Elfina!

Lucky Boy

Our Matthew is indeed a lucky boy. Recently he won in two consecutive contests by Cartoon Network! One was last November 14 for 12 Nuts of Christmas and December 15 for Fosters Imaginary Christmas. Check out the premium items he won: Bloo and Eduardo stockings, cartoonnetwork foldable bag, pencil case set and Bloo notebook. It was just sad that we weren't able to see the live shows of all the cartoonnetwork characters held in ATC and in the Fort.

An Orange Christmas

I have always wanted something unique every christmas season. Whether its my color motiff for decorations or how I would wrap presents to festive activities our family can do together, I give extra effort and thought into these things. For this year, I have chosen the color theme of orange and gold. This was a challenge since my existing christmas balls are all blue and silver (the theme I had two years ago). Nevertheless, I still managed to infuse these conflicting colors. With a big help from a simple orange satin ribbon, everything was unified.
That was the simplest task of all. It was with the gift wrapping that I was stumped. Last year, I used a personalized badge with Matthew's picture on it wearing a Santa Claus hat greeting the receivers a Merry Christmas. I got a lot of compliments for it. So I'm thinking its kinda hard to outdo this one for this year. I couldn't even find a wrapping paper that was more into the golds and the oranges. So I improvised. To all of our gift receivers, just see my final product.

An "Orangey" Christmas to All!

Have a little "Faith"

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on" - Carl Sandberg

After reading that passage from a website, I thought of my new niece, Reanne Faith Chan. She's the newborn child (October 25, 2006 via C-section) of my sister-in-law, Weng and her husband Rodel. Now someone will be calling Renz "kuya" which he really, REALLY likes.

And since its Christmas, I wanted to give Faith a unique gift. So after creating my family's website, an idea struck me - why not make one for Faith? This got me excited. I initially wanted to make the site via blogger but the templates are not 'baby-friendly'. Thus, my search for the ultimate baby template began. Luckily, I have discovered several sites offering free temps...unluckily, I have encountered errors whenever I change the existing blogger template. I'm not a techie person but I religiously followed the instructions. Still, fate is not on my side.

Then came zootsdesigns.com, a cool, retro-inspired site offering free temps. And lo and behold! Finally a template that is soooo coool(the one with the pink and green flowers). But like the previous temps, this also did not show up in blogger beta...

Now what? I was ready to give up when I saw bundleofjoys.com, another site especially for babies. Eureka! After a few hours of getting-to-know, I finally gave birth to a website! The 'child' labor took days not hours, but like giving birth to a real baby, the hardwork paid off...

You really must have a little "Faith".

A Bucket of Love

Happy Birthday Son! May your 'year 2' be filled with love and sharing for others...

Well it's Matthew's birthday. I had planned a day filled with fun activities but unfortunately, Matthew has colds and cough since yesterday. We were planning to hear mass early on, have a special breakfast for us three then head off to SM North for an hour of Playzone (Playzone is a new place for kids much like Kids-at-Work. Although it is smaller than the pioneer, it has a different theme imitating a small city where the kids can ride a miniature car then go around the different 'small places' in the city). Shopping is next as I wanted to get a Christmas outfit for Matthew to wear for 'around the corner' Christmas parties. All that didn't happen except for the special breakfast!

The day wasn't a total waste as I also started a 'panata' for Matthew. Starting today and every birthday of Matthew, we will be donating a year's savings of 25 centavos (and other coins). For this year, a bucket full of 'love' was given to our parish, Christ the King in Project 7. I got the idea from a recent project of the church which aims at utilizing spare coins, usually left around the house, for church programs. In this way, we are teaching Matthew the value of sharing at such an early age. I can't wait to see the day when Matthew is the one saving all these coins.

Happy 2nd Birthday again Matthew! We love you buckets and buckets FULL!

An Incredible Birthday: Matthew's Second

Today was a hectic day for us. Since it was my birthday yesterday and Matthew is celebrating his on Tuesday, Willie and I decided to hold a small late afternoon party today with the Bartolome family as exclusive guests.

Early on I decided on 'The Incredibles' theme for Matthew so a few months back, I already purchased an Incredibles costume in, where else? Divi! Then fast rewind to November 30: I trooped down to my fave place again and bought a toy set of the famous Pixar movie. Since haggling is my game, I got the set of 5 for P100 from its original price of P130. I'll be using these as cake toppers. I also bought a dozen of Incredibles party hats for P20 to be worn by everyone, even by Matthew's maternal grandparents! They were all game.

My mom just came from a wedding while my dad just came from a burial service (which is kinda weird now that I think about it) so we basically started at 7:30 pm from the original planned time of 4:30. We had chocolate cake, fried chicken and pancit malabon for long life. Everybody had a blast as Matthew entertained his guests with his cute antics. But what also made the party an incredible one was the fireworks display of SM which we all saw from our dinning area window.

Below is what I wrote in the card attached to the present we gave to Matthew...

Dear Matthew, advance happy birthday! You know so many things already and here's wishing more - "pa-cute" ; "who's the baby here?"; "supering-GO"; "masarap ba ang cheese?"; "behave"; "london bridge-baby"; a..o..u..i..e; b, c, d; wo-wo-wah...
Love Daddy and Mommy

A Simple Birthday: 80's style

OMG! I'm 32! I'm sharing you my age now because this is the last time I will be vocal about my age. Why? Because 33 is just 7 years away from 40! One things for sure, though, my birthdays will always be filled with simple things. I have always been simple. Take for example my gift to myself - a brown polka dot headband reminiscent of the 80's era. And because of this P25 purchase from Divi, a day before my birthday, I began remembering high school and college days. Especially the music - NEW WAVE! I could remember our barkada when we would all troop to Tagaytay, windows down and the cd playing CHORUS GIRL, a collection of the best 80's vibe.

Being simple and laid-back has kept me somehow on the ground. I could remember my husband saying that it was my over-all simplicity that he has fallen in love with. So I guess, here's to more simple but meaningful birthdays to come...for me!